This application claims the priority of German patent application Serial No. 198 47 467.9 filed Oct. 15, 1998. The disclosure of the German patent application, as well as that of each US and foreign patent and patent application mentioned in the specification of the present application, is incorporated herein by reference.
The invention relates to improvements in aggregates of the type wherein one or more machines cooperate with one or more switch cabinet units (hereinafter called control cabinets or cabinets for short) for confinement of electrical, electronic and/or other equipment and/or components which are utilized to supply energy to, to monitor the operation of and/or to control the functioning of the machine or machines. Examples of such aggregates are those employing at least one packing machine and at least one integrated control cabinet or an analogous enclosure for the instruments cables, switches, circuits, valves, servomotors, computers and/or other components which initiate and evaluate the operation of the packing machine(s). Aggregates of such character can be utilized for the making of packets (e.g., those known as soft cup- or those known as hinge lid-packets for confinement of arrays of plain or filter cigarettes or other rod-shaped products of the tobacco processing industry.
A drawback of many presently known aggregates or assemblies of one or more producing and/or processing machines with one or more control cabinets is that they occupy a substantial amount of space, especially if all of their parts are to be readily accessible, or that it is necessary to complete an at least partial time-consuming dismantling if the aggregates are designed and assembled in a space-saving manner.
Another drawback of conventional aggregates of the above outlined character is that the machine(s) is or are quite noisy which is particularly undesirable if a large number of such aggregates are set up in a single hall or another building in a manner as is customary, for example, in the tobacco processing industry.
Still further, the appearance of a machine-control cabinet aggregate also constitutes a factor which warrants at least some consideration.
An object of the invention is to provide a compact machine-control cabinet aggregate wherein the interior of the machine or machines and/or one or more bard-to-reach parts of the control cabinet or cabinets are or can be caused to become readily accessible to the operators and/or other authorized persons.
Another object of the invention is to provide an aggregate which, if it includes one or more packing machines, is constructed and assembled in such a way that the interior of each packing machine is readily accessible if and whenever necessary.
A further object of the invention is to provide novel and improved movement-permitting connections between the constituents of an aggregate including a first unit having one or more producing and/or processing machines and a second unit having one or more control cabinets.
An additional object of the invention is to provide a novel and improved method of movably assembling the constituents of the above outlined aggregate in a space-saving manner and with a view to afford convenient access to each constituent of the aggregate.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a compact and eye-pleasing aggregate which can be utilized with advantage in tobacco processing plants and which is or can be designed to contribute to a reduction of noise or to the establishment of an acceptable noise level in actual use of the aggregate, either alone or jointly with relatively small or large numbers of additional aggregates and/or other machines or production lines.
A further object of the invention is to provide an aggregate constituting a combination of numerous features which, to the inventor""s knowledge, were never combined in conventional assemblies of machines and control cabinets even though they contribute to facility of inspection and/or repair, simplicity, compactness, a reduction of noise level as well as to the eye-pleasing appearance of the aggregate.
Another object of the invention is to provide a novel and improved aggregate employing at least one cigarette packing machine.
An additional object of the invention is to provide a machine-control cabinet aggregate which can be readily assembled at the locale of intended use and which renders it possible to employ one or more bulky, heavy and/or otherwise hard-to-handle parts which are common to the machine or machines as well as to the associated control cabinet or cabinets.
Still another object of the invention is to provide an aggregate of the above outlined character wherein the housing(s) of the control cabinet(s) and the frame(s) of the machine(s) can share certain component parts, such as walls and/or the hardware which is used to movably and/or otherwise support the shared parts.
A feature of the invention resides in the provision of an aggregate which comprises a first unit including at least one energy-consuming machine having at least one internal space, and a second unit which includes at least one control cabinet having means for supplying energy to and for regulating the operation of the at least one machine. One of the first and second units comprises a wall (such as a plate-like partition) movable to and from a predetermined position in which the at least one internal space is at least partially separated from the at least one control cabinet.
The at least one machine can constitute a packing machine, e.g., a packing machine for rod-shaped products of the tobacco processing industry.
The wall can form part of the at least one control cabinet. For example, the at least one control cabinet can comprise a rear portion which includes the wall.
In accordance with a presently preferred embodiment, the at least one control cabinet is movable relative to the at least one machine and the wall can be connected with so that it shares the movements of the at least one control cabinet. For example, the at least one control cabinet can be mounted in such a way that it is reciprocable and/or pivotable relative to the at least one machine; if it is pivotable, it can be mounted for angular movement about an at least substantially vertical axis.
The arrangement can be such that the second unit of the improved aggregate comprises a plurality of control cabinets at the rear side of the at least one machine. Such control cabinets can include two cabinets which are at least substantial mirror images of each other.
At least one of the units, for example the first unit, can be substantially L-shaped or U-shaped.
Furthermore, at least one of the units (e.g., the second unit) can comprise one or more constituents which is or are parallelepipedon(s).
The height of one of the units can be a fraction of the height of the other unit. The same holds true for other dimensions of the first and second units.
The novel features which are considered as characteristic of the invention are set forth in particular in the appended claims. The improved aggregate itself, however, both as to its construction and the modes of assembling and manipulating the same, together with numerous additional important and advantageous features and attributes thereof, will be best understood upon perusal of the following detailed description of certain presently preferred specific embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings.